


Always These Years Between Us

by CampionSayn



Category: DCU, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Ambiguously Happy Ending, Gen, Graphic description of torture, Multi, POV Alternating, Rocky Redemption!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:31:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wanted to pull himself out of his own entrapment, but it came as no surprise that pulling on the strings that control you have consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always These Years Between Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Twilight_Shadow_Songs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Shadow_Songs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The moments our souls die in](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026118) by [Twilight_Shadow_Songs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Shadow_Songs/pseuds/Twilight_Shadow_Songs). 



_-:-_  
_I like checking days off a calendar - 151 days crossed and nothing truly horrible has happened. 152 and the world isn’t ruined. 153 and I haven’t destroyed anyone. 154 and no one really hates me._  
_-Sharp Objects._

* * *

 

  1. **Gordon Godfrey.**  
_Three weeks after making a report to Darkseid and actually doing something secretly decent._  
  
I will always like Earth more than my home planet, no matter what may happen in times ahead to come where things might go phenomenally well for me or turn to shit, not just for myself, but for everyone that I have come to know and everyone I would and will never know. I will _always_ prefer Earth.  
  
Hell, I’ll just get it out, I _love_ Earth. I actually have the occasional daydream of being “cured”—not a politically or sociologically correct statement for a gift I grew into as I aged that could prove to be more of a benefit than an ill-conceived survival device, but the only word I can really think of for getting over it—and being forgotten by Darkseid and his self-aggrandizing plans to hold absolute power over every fucking thing in the known universe _(even better, of Darkseid dying horribly of a disease or even Superman growing some balls and just smiting the worthless, hateful creature to dust; those daydreams are better)_ and just settling down to grow old somewhere I’ve rested on the planet before. My mind can never settle between some little apartment complex in New York where there’s always a flock of pigeons just across the street under one of those trees humans plant in the sidewalk with little metal fences around them or perhaps somewhere on the West Coast, where the land trembled every so often and there was beach front property I could move in and out of on a whim.  
  
Sometimes I forget that those daydreams are dangerous and have to be reminded.  
  
Usually this happens when I’m minding my own business in my current apartment _(this week it’s in Rhode Island to keep an eye and ear on the Teacup Justice League—that was also incorrect, I know that they have sort of generally understood title among people now, but I had been mentally calling them that since I was placed in this position and I think it fits so the Teacup part remains, rather than Young Justice or Teen Titans or whatever; they are tiny, undersized versions of their mentors and it suitably chafes them whenever I say it aloud, it stays—in a nice brick residential three flights up with a view of the harbor)_ and get called in by the ugly bitch that is my handler to speak with Darkseid.  
  
Sometimes I get reminded by one of the few beings that would consider me their trustworthy companion, and one of the fewer I might have called friend if I wasn’t quite as fucked up as I know I am.  
  
Perhaps one day I won’t have to daydream, I won’t have to plot to get out from under the vice grip that is the shadow ever-present of Apokolips—I’ll simply be experiencing the dream.  
  
Because, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time on Earth, it’s this: Stranger things _can_ and _have_ happened.  
  
**The Question**  
_Three weeks before visiting the intergalactic version of Hell_  
  
“Please tell me that you haven’t actually used these.”  
  
The box of condoms I found in Godfrey’s bathroom behind one of the cupboards _(where he also kept the Butterfly Fields body oil I happen to know that he likes to use to fill his empty Eternity for Men cologne bottles; as well as three mini bottles of Campari he’d smuggled from his work visit to Coast City that tasted like liquid garbage; and, this gave me a laugh in my private moments to wake myself up on stakeouts for the League, all the best hits by Cyndi Lauper on a tape recorder he often tucked into his briefcase and played at night with a drink and a soft bed)_ was held out in my hand like most people would hold a dead rat by the tail taking it to a trash bin.  
  
Godfrey at least had the decency that humans _(the general population that these particular condoms were meant for—not the more intelligent minority that were clever enough to avoid them)_ seemed to have when it came to another person finding something they tried to keep away from guests that thought it prudent to mind their own business, but I would not stop bothering him until I got an answer. He’d known this since the second or third time I’d raided his apartment and a part of me feels proud of that, even as he wouldn’t drop the look from his face as he made to take the box from me.  
  
I’m a little taller and he knows very well that if he touches me he gets kicked and his hand twisted like a pretzel, so I still have the advantage and I have more of his embarrassment to bolster my movement.  
  
“What in the name of—Why were you—What does it matter if I use those or one of the dozen other kinds they sell at a commercial store?! I was under the impression I _wasn’t_ supposed to impregnate the women of this planet without their permission!”  
  
I snorted and had the good grace to do Godfrey the favor of lifting the lid off of his trash bin and chucked the box and its contents inside, whereupon it made contact with the box full of cracked and sticky eggshells left from that morning’s breakfast one of Godfrey’s producers…minions or assistants, I can never make up my mind…made the New God a heavy omelet. Shell pieces stuck to the outside of the condom box as I dropped the trash lid back on and found Godfrey—as expected—trying to decide between reaching in and pulling out the dirtied material, ordering me to do it or throttling me with his own two hands.  
  
I picked at one ear when he decided on none of the above.  
  
“ _Why_?!! Why would you do that?!”  
  
“Because, while I often find you to be the most insufferable lying asshole in my life, I also have no desire for you to experience testicular cancer and a higher inclination to be active in illegal activities that would be the result of repeated use of this particular brand of contraceptive. Use lamb skin brands from now on.”  
  
He lowered his voice to the level and volume I did not like because of its probability of getting me to do something, but didn’t bother reciting my go-to defense of singing _Let’s Hear It For the Boy_ in the back of my head when he simply stated, “You owe me another set of condoms.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Before next week.”  
  
Next week was in two days.  
  
“Why the rush?”  
  
“Not your business.”  
  
“Then why did you get me interested?”  
  
**G. Gordon Godfrey**  
_Three weeks after doing a good thing_  
  
It is an unbearable nightmare, being within reach of your twin—practically your soul mate—when you are both in a state of such disrepair after torture and not being able to give comfort.  
  
Glorious knew that his sister was alive after Granny had wrapped her in wiring he had seen before _(there was something quite similar to the design on Earth that was used by fetishists in India and parts of the southern United States, but instead of wires that ground and tore at flesh, nylon rope was usually appropriated to wind in crisscross patterns along the windpipe, the collarbone, the arms so they held onto opposite shoulders; twines were doubled against the rows of the rib-cage and then cinched with little circles of metal around the skin of the abdomen to tighten around and brace the spine so another person could grab the spine without fat getting in the way; whereupon the ropes were yanked tight along the rear and pelvis to meet and secure the knees and ankles in a position not dissimilar to prayer, save for the fact that the very end of the rope was hooked so the bound person hung upside down from the ceiling—though on Earth, it was meant for pleasure and not…this)_ and set the display to shock her once an hour.  
  
Amazing wouldn’t choke on the electric pulses causing her eyes to roll in her head or bleed bright cherry red blood from every open orifice if she wasn’t alive.  
  
The blood kept pooling and drying and pooling on the floor beneath her, stark and horrible contrast to the blood that had dried an almost black beetle color in her butter-lemon-sunshine hair—bits and flecks holding onto the strands like encroaching insects from when they were children.  
  
He wanted to pull himself out of his own entrapment, in the almost gelatin liquid that made him cold and numb, only to send him into blinding pain with the wires Granny Goodness had needled into his nerves from the tips of his ears to the inside of his urethra and ankles so he felt like he was burning out and freezing in a flash simultaneously; the slowness of his bleeding spreading through the gel like paint mixed with oil—an antagonistic relationship in opposition. He wanted out, he wanted to breathe without choking on his own fluids, he wanted to rip that haggard, disaster of a bitch down with one of the hatchets he’s seen her use on small children to dispose of their little limbs so they couldn’t run away from the Orphanage again.  
  
He wanted to help his sister, but had to settle on exhaling flecks of blood, dribbling out with the words he had to croak to try and keep her awake and believe him even when he couldn’t believe himself—because he was such a fucking liar _(Question—Vic—had always been right about that)_ he wished if Granny decided on mercy she might well cut out his voice the next time she came to up the ante on his torture, “I’m so sorry, Amazing…I was the one who was supposed to die…you weren’t supposed to be caught…I’m sorry… Truly…”  
  
More blood fell from previously full and luscious lips, now chapped dry and cut, her eyes roving under her lashes and--  
  
All, and he meant, _every single one_ of his muscles seized up at the same time so his face ducked down into the gelatin and almost down his throat. The wires had activated and across from him, Amazing was seizing as well, gyrating grotesquely in her place suspended in the air as he thrashed and drowned and tried to go into that place in his mind he had built up and made solid through years of knowing Question. His little memory palace, a private fox hole to curl up on himself and pretend he was somewhere else and feeling something other than what it was like before dying over and over again.  
  
_(Being stuck on a plane to Brazil with both Jack Ryder and Clark Kent to interview the supposed creative team of a new anti-cancer serum, in which time Godfrey spent absolutely adoring every moment the other two bickered about anything and everything while Glorious himself sipped black coffee that was actually good... Joining Question on a rooftop in Hub City to eat garlic whipped potatoes and teriyaki pork tenderloin camouflaged inside of two 15oz cartons of what had been Blue Bonnet Margarine, “I don’t suppose you have another spoon?” …Giving Power Boy and Little Barda their first lemon poppy seed muffins that made them both swoon a little against each other and lead to him laughing for almost an hour straight once he took a Boom Tube back to Earth... Standing out in the middle of a snow covered wilderness, nightfall turning the sky black, half a moon causing silver light to reflect off of falling snowflakes; the light of the small cabin he was staying at amplifying his being alone, but peaceful… Had he the chance to live, had he really been free, he was pretty sure he would have bought that cabin outside of both New York and New Jersey; it had four bedrooms that felt huge with everything else that felt small and it seemed like it would have been the perfect place to just exist and maybe find a little happiness.)_  
  
**The Question**  
_After hauling Godfrey out of Apokolips with the help of the League_  
  
“I try not to allow myself to abandon things and people I’ve grown attached to, if I can possibly help it. It’s not in my nature.”  
  
This was the only real answer Question would give Godfrey or his sister when they asked him the reason for his recruiting people in the flash of a few days and convinced them to help him rescue someone they didn’t know and someone who had been confirmed to be a pest of not only the League itself even on good days, but of Earth as a whole as well.  
  
No matter how many different ways he was asked, this was his answer and so it wasn’t surprising when, after they could finally stomach real and solid food and drink stronger than water, he was to repeat it again, not only to Glorious and Amazing but to Power Boy and Little Barda as well.  
  
The pumpkin and apple pie he had gotten from Superman’s mother (that only he, Martha and Krypto were aware existed) was set on Godfrey’s side table and he was pleased that remembering to bring food came to him each morning on his phone with the ringtone that was his voice listing off markets that didn’t use pesticides when taking care of their produce.  
  
“One slice each, and if you start gagging because it’s too rich, I’m calling the nurse and I’m out the door.”  
  
He took their unwillingness to acknowledge him as his hands sorted paper plates and drove plastic cutlery into the center of the still warm apple pie as their agreeing to his demands.



**Author's Note:**

> I found myself inexplicably drawn to Gillian Flynn novels in order to set the tone for this correctly and somehow ended up basing Godfrey's personality very, very loosely on the little sociopath in Gone Girl, but with actual FEELINGS. If I'm sane, I'll never go back to those books again, but had almost as much fun as frustration working on the characters, so I can't complain there. 
> 
> Hope you liked this TSS, and that I didn't butcher your works with this!


End file.
